Line #14 Headscratchers/HeraldsOfValdemar


1	[[foldercontrol]]
2	[[folder:Kerowyn's decisions]]
3	* Is Kerowyn incompetent? Consider the following three cases:
4	** When Kerowyn meets the travelers on their return, she demands that they tell everything that happened to Elspeth, Need, and Skif. It takes the entire morning to tell their story. Mornelithe Falconsbane was the BigBad of the story, and would have been described to some detail. Afterwards, Kerowyn tells about the situation with Haldorn, and tells about the new mage who has appeared in Ancar's court -- one who looks half-cat and calls himself "Falcon's Breath, Falcon's Death, or something like that." Kerowyn's eyebrows raise at the varied but unanimous reaction.
5	*** Of course the [[WatsonianVersusDoylist Doylist]] perspective is simply that Mercedes Lackey inadvertently wrote a plot hole that was never caught before publication.
6	*** Besides, they all have a marked tendency to dislike talking about Falconsbane or even saying his name -- they could easily have said "evil mage" the whole time and left it at that. After all, they all presumed he was dead or as good as.
7	*** Darkwind and Firesong in particular refer to Falconsbane only as "The Beast" throughout that conversation.
8	** When the decision to send a covert team of mages to kill Ancar is made, Kerowyn clearly thinks Elspeth is the best person for the job. Not her Skybolts, who've done things like that before. Elspeth, who must not go into danger, who has very little experience, and who Ancar will brutally torture to death if he catches.
9	*** First of all, Elspeth has abdicated from her position as Heir, so the injunction that the Heir must not go into any danger if at all possible no longer applies to her. As for the Skybolts, it was only just in that book that magic was now open in Valdemar, so none of the mages that were originally part of the mercenary group were in Valdemar. The Skybolt mages had all returned to Rethwellan and later all went their separate ways or became part of the mage school that Quenten set up in Bolthaven. The decision, after all, was to send a covert team of mages, not a covert team of fighters, so it makes sense that Elspeth, as one of the few mages available immediately in Valdemar, would be part of the team.
10	*** Elspeth is one of just a handful of people who would recognize Falconsbane on sight, and all of them have formed a sort of team. In addition, the Gwena-Rolan relay is an established means of getting information across long distances; if things went south, Selenay would need to know immediately. So there are some good reasons for her to be along besides the fact that she's a main character. (Plus if she were told she couldn't go, she'd probably strike out on her own).
11	** In ''Storm Warning,'' assassination is attempted through flying knives hidden in the walls of various rooms. They have no idea who did it until Karal, whose mentor died in the attacks and who was supposed to die himself, makes himself a target to flush out the assassin. The assassin turns out to be a man who typically faded in the background, usually unnoticed and typically forgotten, but who was a major artist and person called upon to repair or alter walls. Standard investigation would have identified him as one with access, and made him a suspect for investigators to investigate.
12	*** Kerowyn's a mercenary captain, not an investigator. The rest of the Heraldic College may safely be blamed for idiocy, though, since investigation is one of their primary jobs.
13	*** The suspect pool was explicitly stated to be "Everybody in the Imperial Palace except the servants". The problem is that ''too many'' people had access to those locations, especially since the traps had been potentially laid up to a ''year'' before. Who can possibly remember every person who went into every room in the palace a year ago, if they weren't specifically recording that information at the time?
14	*** The issue is far more than just access. Someone who was called upon to install fixtures, open up walls, and so forth, would be among the first to be noted as possible suspects. Then identify where the "birdies" actually appeared from, what equipment was there, etc.
15	*** The traps are installed ''magically''; carpentry tools and suchlike aren't required. So, the suspect list isn't just the maintenance staff, its literally ''everyone'' who has been alone in the affected rooms for any length of time in the past year. And the actual assassin wasn't someone who installed fixtures; he was a portrait painter, who went around the Court doing sketches of people (much like the White House photographer today, only with a brush).
16	* What has ''me'' wondering if Kero's incompetent is a few moments in ''By The Sword''. After going to live with her grandmother and Tarma and learning that she has many Shin'a'in cousins and a mage uncle, Kero still feels like her only choices are to become a mercenary or return to being a noble daughter. When she later mentions she has the option to go to the Plains she refers to it dismissively as joining "my crazy cousins" and yet when thinking about her family she seems to think that only her brother counts.
17	* Kero also quits the Skybolts for perfectly understandable reasons, removing her badge and throwing it down. She leaves while noting other Skybolts passionately following her example - and then assumes she has no friends and that the head of the company will have her killed, and runs. Kero's been with the Skybolts for years and should be able to recognize the depth of loyalty they have to her at ''least'' enough to assume they will neither murder her on sight nor allow someone else to do so. Then upon realizing she can't be a mercenary right now, all she can think to do is turn to Herald Eldan, but she's too proud to do so. She does not think even once of turning to her extended family, though she could get help from her uncle if she asked, or joining or even just working for Tale'sedrin. With her skills, the latter wouldn't be relying on charity at all. And yet in the third act she and her cousins have a good relationship and she's well regarded by them.
18	** There are ten years between Kero going on the run and the start of the third act. Presumably she went down to the Plains while replacing Hellsbane and actually got to know and like her relatives then.
19	** Pride is probably Kerowyn's biggest flaw. She always wants badly to be independent to the point of being unable to ask for help as an adult, and she went on the run in winter somewhere far from the Plains. If she was able to travel, maybe she would have thought of going to her relatives, maybe not. Absolutely Tale'sedrin would have embraced her, though, as their cousin, a skilled rider and fighter, and the last student of their revered Clan-Mother, and as someone who could help them in dealings with outsiders.
20	** Being with Tale'sedrin would have been a decent life, but it wouldn't be what she trained for. And there's implied to be a certain amount of BecauseDestinySaysSo involved: Kero rebuilt the Skybolts in time to have them ready to assist Valdemar, just 'happened' to be in Rethwellan at the right time to give them a nudge, and even brought Prince Daren up at the right time to meet Selenay. None of that would have happened if she'd just gone to the Plains. (Also, the Shin'a'in cousins ''do'' help her -- they start an annual Horse Fair in the Skybolts' hometown to bring in much-needed money -- and she doesn't complain because the arrangement will benefit everyone.)
21
22
23	[[/folder]]
24	[[folder:Choice-related doctrine]]
25	* When Talia is first picked up by her "Companion" and spirited off towards the castle, she has no idea what is happening. Whenever she tries to get answers out of any of the people on her stops along the way, they cheerily claim that it is illegal to try to explain to her what is happening, lest she get bad information and become confused, or something. When she finally does meet the queen and gets a rundown of what we in the audience have seen as obvious for what feels like an eternity now, the queen is surprised and outraged that the concept of "Companion's choice" was never explained to her. Even though this is the person who apparently made it illegal to explain the obvious to idiots, she clearly aims to have quite the harsh talking-to with the big, mean peasants back in Talia's homeland.
26	** I've just re-read the chapters in question. Only ''one'' person - the female Roadguard in the second town - claims that she can't tell Talia what's going on, and what she says is not that it's ''illegal'' but that it's "against the rules," which is not necessarily the same thing. Also, while Dirk is (briefly) surprised that Talia doesn't know what's going on, Selenay absolutely is not; she's startled only when Talia begs forgiveness for wanting to be a Herald, and she gives no indication that she's upset with anyone Talia met on her journey for not explaining the situation.
27	*** I just re-read those chapters, too - at no point does Talia actually say 'I have no idea what's happening to me, can you please tell me what in the Havens is going on?' or similar. Her own shyness and severe training in 'don't question authority' means that she never really says more than a line or two to anyone on her journey, so everyone who talks to her simply thinks she's a little confused, not that she has no idea what's happening. Not to mention that given what's revealed about the Companion's abilities later - and especially Talia's - it's very probable that Rolan was 'encouraging' her mentally not to ask questions and stay calm, so she never came off as frightened enough for anyone to ask her directly about her confusion. After all, the two-way mental/spiritual/magical connection from the moment of Choosing means that Rolan '''knows''' that Talia wants to be a Herald. Consent to whatever happens in order to get her to the Palace to do just that is included; if Talia knew the whole situation she'd simply say it was fine.
28	** It's strongly implied in the same novel that children in the Kingdom are supposed to be taught certain basics about Heralds and Companions (presumably who they are, what they do, and that Companions select Heralds). Talia doesn't know any of this because the Holderkin are a backward, isolationist, prejudiced bunch. Selenay's reaction is directed more at the Holderkin -- and perhaps to some extent at herself -- for creating a pocket of the Kingdom where potential Trainees can arrive at the Collegium without knowing ''anything'' about Heralds.
29	** There is another reason for making it a rule that you can't tell the kids on the way to Haven about what Heralds are and what they do; it keeps the kids' heads from being filled with all kinds of hearsay and gossip and misinformation from people who've never been near the Collegium in their life and are going off of old wives' tales. And yes, as mentioned above, the people who made that rule never allowed for the possibility that an inductee ''would never have been told about Companion's Choice at all''; its not something that happens that often. And there is a mention after Talia's case comes up to Selenay about 'Perhaps we should change the rules to make it easier on the next case like this'.
30	** So, overall, what they're trying to do is to make people wait to have the proper discussion we see with Teren in Orientation, rather than have it all happen in a more confused fashion. (And it's not just the Roadguard, Dirk says the same).
31	[[/folder]]
32	[[folder:Arrow-code]]
33	* What happened to Heraldic arrow-code? It was plot-critical in the "Arrows trilogy" and has never come up again. Lackey seems to have similarly dropped the "some Heralds can't Mindspeak with their Companions" hook -- now arrow-code seems to be redundant since the Companions can send messages to each other.
34	** The Arrows trilogy was one of the first Valdemar books published. It's possible that the 'rules' of the world weren't quite worked out all the way by then.
35	** EarlyInstallmentWeirdness
36	** It does crop up now and then in later books. ''Magic's Promise'' has a Herald who has trouble communicating with his Companion.
37	** It is possible that the "powers" of Heralds have gotten stronger over the generations. So the Arrow Code used to be needed more in the past.
38	** Kyril doesn't actually say it, but the Arrow code is heavily implied to be a last-ditch resort for worst case scenarios, where a Herald, for some reason, can't communicate via their Companion (Talia can't at the time because she's being Mage-blocked; a situation that hasn't happened for centuries and which the Heraldic Circle could not have accounted for as a possibility thanks to the country-wide mental block regarding magic). It's not used very often because a Herald separated from their Companion is usually dead. If you think about it, every other hero (who is also a Herald) in a really bad situation in the books is either a strong mindspeaker in their own right (Mags, Skif), or in a situation so dire that they don't have time to send such a message (Vanyel, Alberich) or in a situation where a message wouldn't help (Lavan).
39	*** Borders into WMG, but... the other situation where the arrow code might be needed is sheer distance from a Companion. This would normally be a spy. Who thinks that Mags or Nikolas is going to create the Arrow code during the ''Herald Spy'' series?
40	[[/folder]]
41	[[folder:Timeline question #1]]
42	* How much time elapsed between between Sendar's death at the end of the Tedrel Wars and Talia's being chosen at the start of ''Arrows of the Queen''?
43	** If you go by Jadus being one of Sendar's bodyguards in ''Exile's Honor'', and being elderly in ''Arrows of the Queen'', you get 30-40 years.
44	** If you go by Bazie's recollections in ''Take a Thief'', you get 25-35 years.
45	*** It's been awhile since I read ''Take a Thief'', but is it possible that Bazie was injured in a separate, earlier conflict against the Tedrels, but they weren't identified as such until the 'official' Tedrel Wars? They were all mercenaries, after all, and their participating in an earlier conflict with Valdemar as part of a larger foreign army could explain a lot.
46	** If you go by the stated timeline in ''Arrows of the Queen'', you get 15 years.
47	** If you go by the chronology of ''Exile's Valor'' and Elspeth's stated age at the start of ''Arrow's Flight'', you get 11 years.
48	* So, which is it?
49	** WritersCannotDoMath
50	** [[EpilepticTrees Jadus appeared elderly because he was prematurely aged due to his injuries. Bazie had similar problems.]]
51	** No reason Jadus couldn't have been a bodyguard in his 50s or so. Heralds keep themselves in top physical condition.
52	** There's also the fact that his being 'elderly' is only mentioned from Talia's POV. Talia is only 13, and peasant-born in a medieval world (where commoners were middle-aged at thirty). Talia's narrative states that Jadus reminds her of her paternal grandmother; given that Talia was to be married off at thirteen, and that's implied to be typical for Holderkin, her grandmother could have been as young as 45.
53	[[/folder]]
54	[[folder:Timeline question #2]]
55	* For that matter, how old is Selenay by the time she meets Prince Daren?
56	** Considering that she was around twenty when she married the first time and Elspeth was in her early twenties at the end of ''By the Sword'', Selenay would have to be in her early to mid forties.
57	*** Which explains the twins; the longer a woman goes between pregnancies (or before having children, period) the higher the chance of multiples.
58	[[/folder]]
59	[[folder:The necessity of nodes]]
60	* This is a bit of fridge horror that comes from reading the entire series of novels for the umpteenth time. In ''Magic's Promise'', part of the ''Last Herald Mage'' trilogy, under the city of Highjorune an unstable fault, ''and'' a hole punched down to the core of the planet, being held together by a heartstone's spell, which was powered by a powerful node of magic. The horror comes into play at the end of the Mage Storms series, and the beginning of the Owl Knight series; In order to avert a second cataclysm, all the magic was channeled into the void, and spread out evenly across the world. No more nodes. So, what happened to Highjorune and the surrounding area, without any power to the spell holding it together?
61	** By that point, the wound had probably healed enough that the stone was no longer necessary.
62	*** Agreed. The spell was supposed to slowly heal the fault and the hole over time--after several hundred years (the time between Last Herald Mage and Mage Storms) the fault would have healed.
63	[[/folder]]
64	[[folder:Monarch's Own choice]]
65	* In ''Magic's Promise'', Vanyel is speaking with Yfandes about Randale's coronation, and about his fears with Shavri being chosen by Taver, specifically why Taver chose a Healer, and his (correct) guess that Randale's sterility is a sign of a worse disease to come. He confesses to Yfandes that he was worried Rolan would choose ''him''. ''How''? Vanyel is already Chosen by Yfandes. Would he have two Companions? Would Yfandes have to repudiate Vanyel and damage him similarly to how Tylendel was damaged by Gala, then have Vanyel go through what Talamir went through when Taver died? Would Yfandes die? Or would it be like in the end of the first ''Exiles'' book, with Vanyel acting as King's Own unofficially despite not having been Chosen by the King's Own Companion?
66	** It's established that the Monarch's Own's companion can and often does choose someone who is already a Herald. IIRC, the previous companion would turn out to have only had a temporary bond to the Herald in question.
67	** EarlyInstallmentWeirdness. The above answer is based on the ''Arrows'' trilogy; there, and in the first two books of the ''Literature/LastHeraldMageTrilogy'', the Monarch's Own Companion often chooses a Herald or a Herald-Trainee. As Shavri's daughter shares her strong Mindspeech and Empathy, her parents discuss the likelihood that she'll be Monarch's Own after Shavri dies, and Yfandes says she may be Chosen in the meantime but it will be an "unbonded" Choosing. In ''Magic's Price'' the girl is much-loved by Companions but still not Chosen and will not be until Shavri dies and Taver picks her; a very similar situation happens in the Mags books with Amily, the daughter of a different Monarch's Own.
68	** It seems to me that a 'temporary Companion' would be an excuse to get that person a Herald-level education when they wouldn't otherwise receive one. In the cases of Jisa and Amily, they're already in residence at Haven, so they wouldn't need to be Chosen to receive the appropriate education -- especially since they each have at least one person in the know about their future status.
69	[[/folder]]
70	[[folder:Karathanelan's death]]
71	* What is the overlap between ''By The Sword'' and the Exile Duology? I've been trying to work out the bit where Karathanelan of Rethwallan is killed while trying to control Selenay (later his death is explained as a hunting accident to ease his brother Faramentha in Valor. His father has been dead some time) versus ''By the Sword'' - Karathanelan dies, and it is known immediately what he did and his father dies of heart failure by this shock and his brother Faramentha becomes king.
72	** It's a RetCon. ''By the Sword'' was one of the earlier books, while the Exile Duology is more recent.
73	[[/folder]]
74	[[folder:Weaponry foolishness]]
75	* In ''Mage Storms'', Urtho's armory is labeled with each weapon, what it does, and ''how to destroy it'', including a note from Urtho to the finder saying "Do yourself and the world a favor and get rid of these." Fair enough. But when they activate a big MagicSink weapon to neutralize the Final Storm, all the other weapons go off and the combined energy almost destroys them all. Afterward, Firesong is kicking himself for not realizing the other weapons would fire. ''Why didn't they deactivate them before the last Storm''??
76	** ''Was'' the problem the other weapons, or was it Charliss' decision to release all the mage-energy of every single magical artifact in the Imperial vaults and add that energy to that of the Storms? Granted, it's implied that at least some of that energy wound up inside the Iron Throne after Melles killed Charliss mid-spell, but if Charliss was remotely accurate as to the amount of energy he could tap there's no way ''all'' of it wound up inside the Throne.
77	** Fair point, though my question was more why they didn't just deactivate the weapons so they couldn't go off at all. The best I can understand it is that 1. they figured that whatever energy the weapons fired would just go into the Void too, not expecting anyone to enhance the Final Storm, or 2. the unexpected problem they had with Urtho's early Kaled'a'in meant they didn't have time to translate all the disassembly instructions and figured it was better to just leave them alone rather than mess up and possibly kill themselves.
78	** Time and resources. The group at Urtho's barely managed to come up with a sufficient plan before the last Mage Storm hit. Deactivating the other weapons likely required time, magic and other resources for proper containment and disposal diverting necessary resources from canceling out the storms.
79	** Or they just didn't understand ''how'' to deactivate them, or couldn't deactivate them without setting them off. Remember, all the weapons are thousands of years old. There's almost no documentation on them, what documentation does exist is in a very archaic form of language no longer used, and that's assuming it was even ''possible'' to deactivate them -- one of the labels from Urtho himself even states that deactivation is impossible. Yes, there's a pair of scholars there to do the translating, but even in our world, such things involve educated guesswork: consider that one of our real-world problems with storing radioactive waste is creating warnings that will still be understood hundreds (or thousands) of years from now, and you've got the Tower group's stumbling block in a nutshell.
80	[[/folder]]
81	[[folder:Valdemar's supposed 'goodness' #1]]
82	* Why doesn't the Crown do anything about the Holderkin? Sure, Valdemar's credo is "there is no one true way", and the Holderkin are entitled to be isolationist Puritan-minded preppers if they want, but beating children, locking them in solitary, and forcibly marrying off thirteen-year-olds to grown men is just a ''wee bit'' past the reasonable bounds of religious freedom. Maybe they didn't know how bad things were before Talia was Chosen, but now she's the ''Queen's Own''--Selenay is her best friend, for crying out loud. So why is everyone (including her!) acting like the Holderkin are just quaint conservative oddballs instead of sending a pack of Heralds down there to make them shape up?
83	** Talia does state that after what happened with her, the Crown set things up so that Heralds can take away any Holderkin kids that are unhappy with that way of life (the Holderkin Elders don't care as it removes any troublemakers) and strongly reminded the Holderkin that when they were first granted permission to settle in Valdemar, they had agreed to also follow Valdemaran law.
84	[[/folder]]
85	[[folder:Lack of therapy]]
86	* ''Brightly Burning'' bothers me because of how FunctionalGenreSavvy all the characters seem to be. ''No one'' makes a serious effort to treat Lavan's obvious problems. No one has a plan for what to do with a Herald who doesn't have full control of his Firestarting gift, already has a reputation for mindless destruction (no matter how justified), and is easily panicked or enraged. It's like they've already read ''Arrows of the Queen'' and realize that all they have to do is get him to the Karsite border for his fated HeroicSacrifice.
87	** I can't answer your first question, but the second is relatively simple. Uber-level Firestarters ''aren't that common''. Based on how people talk about Lavan, there's never been one as powerful as him, ever. That means nobody who can train him as he needs to be trained, nobody who can neutralize him if he truly '''wants''' to be dangerous. The Heralds saved him not because it was the safe or traditional thing to do, but because it was right (as proved by Kalira's Choice), and Heralds do the right thing even if it's dangerous. These guys, magical though they may be, are still in a medieval setting and have mostly medieval levels of therapy. How do you comfort or protect a kid who's terminally distrustful of people? How do you explain to him that his soulmate is a literal angel? How do you explain any of the above dilemmas to him without making it sound like you think he's a [[BestialityIsDepraved monster]]? (Remember how badly Pol's first attempt at "helping" Lavan went.) They ''couldn't'', so they let Kalira handle things and taught Lavan as best they knew how. And they didn't dismiss him as a lamb for the slaughter, either -- they taught him knowledge he would need for a longer career than he ended up having, and they let him rest and have fun like any normal kid. He was by no means some disposable {{Tykebomb}} to them.
88	** In general Valdemar handles people with unusual gifts and unusually powerful gifts very poorly, implicitly because those gifts are so rare that no one knows how to deal with them. Tylendel, Vanyel, Lavan, Talia, Mags all undergo spectacular meltdowns because the Heralds bungled and mismanaged their training/emotional health. There's also a bit of fear mixed in as much as the Heralds try to deny it, many don't want to think about or deal with gifts so powerful, someone can kill you with a thought. So they leave it to the brave soul shanghai'd with the job often to disastrous results.
89	[[/folder]]
90	[[folder:In the Fantasy genre, yet...]]
91	* The Truth Spell is easy, well known to be infallible, and any of the dozens of Heralds hanging around the palace can cast it. So why have so many traitors been able to infiltrate the council? Just make it standard procedure -- every week, a Herald asks them something like, "Have you ever conspired to murder someone?" and doesn't let them in the council room if the person says yes. It wouldn't [[ExactWords entirely prevent would-be usurpers]], but it would have stopped so many problems in the books before they could've started -- ''and'' without any of the ethical/authoritarian/reliability issues that interrogation presents in our world.
92	** Every noble would revolt en-masse if they were subject to constant truth spells. They're already a prideful prickly bunch with a hunger for power. Subjecting them to Truth Spells would imply that the Crown uniquely doesn't trust them (as neither the common folk nor the Heralds are put through the same test) which they would rightfully object to.
93	** In addition to the points above, 1) there's a series-wide emphasis against MundaneUtility, coupled with MindOverManners -- Heralds simply don't use Gifts on civilians without cause. It costs energy, and there are less intrusive ways to determine whether a Council member is a scumbag. 2) Using Truth Spell too often would reveal its limitations and weaknesses, making it easier for someone plotting evil to work around it. 3) Heralds save Truth Spell for cases where they already have a sense of who is at fault and what to ask, e.g. Talia interrogating the man who murdered his stepdaughter in ''Arrow's Flight''. Doing it as a blanket sweep wouldn't be as effective.
94	** They ''do'' use a blanket-sweep with the Truth Spell towards the end of the Arrows trilogy, after Talia is rescued from Ancar and outs Orthallen as a traitor. Elspeth bluntly tells the Council that assessing their loyalty under Truth Spell must be done, causing one of the borderline Councillors to resign before it can be done. We also see in the Herald Spy books that the first-level Truth Spell can be worked around by keeping to ExactWords and short answers, and by exploiting poorly-worded questions. With the second-level spell being '''coercive''', it not only has too much potential to be abused, but would cause Valdemar's people to fear/resent the Heralds if such a spell was used without restraint.
95	[[/folder]]
96	[[folder:Valdemar's supposed 'goodness' #2]]
97	* The slut-shaming that Violetta is put through goes against everything the series has built up about Valdemar to date. When Violetta's innocent letter of infatuation to Brand is found out, an enraged Lady Dia berates Violetta over it, claiming that the letter is somehow proof of Violetta being wanton and sluttish, and topping it all off by stating that if Violetta had sex with Brand, her reputation would be ruined because she'd been "deflowered". When the strict, repressed, isolated ''Holderkin''[[note]]who are polyamorous and have no problem with lesbian relationships[[/note]] come across as more accepting and open than people in Valdemar's main city, there's a major problem.
98	** Valdemar isn't "good." Heralds and the royalty are good, but its citizens are all across the moral map. It's also in MedievalStasis, and the fact that the [[MamasBabyPapasMaybe paternity of a child]] simply ''cannot be proven'' means that female sexuality is going to be tightly controlled, especially when titles and inheritance are in the balance. As for lesbianism among the Holderkin; well, there's no chance of conception that way, so what's the harm?
99	*** If Valdemar isn't good, then why the hell are we expected to root for it in in all the national wars it keeps getting into? Yes, ''realistically'' a country's citizens would be "all across the moral map", but the scope and genre that Mercedes Lackey has chosen for this series demand that Valdemar be comprised mostly of good people. And there are multiple '''gods''' in the setting with a vested interest in making sure it stays that way. It simply makes no sense that the powers that be would ''not'' intervene to make Valdemar more egalitarian than [insert real-world medieval country here], when they have already intervened to do so damn much, including establishing Heralds in the first place. Yes, [medieval country] would be bigoted, but [medieval country] isn't policed by a group of diverse peacekeepers who have the monarch's ear!
100	*** Valdemar is the 'protagonist' country, so the tendency is to support it just as you would the protagonist of any story. Every time it's been involved in a war, another country attacked it. Further, that other country was always further to the bad. Karse? Run by a corrupt church which put people with Gifts to death by mage fires and summoned demons. Hardorn? Usurped by an EvilPrince who used magic to turn his own people into mindless cannon fodder. Whatever Valdemar's faults in bringing its citizenry up to a basic moral standard, the bastardry has always been local: the Crown has never indulged or supported bigotry. In cases where it can't really be helped, like with the Holderkin, they've let it be known that they will tolerate it, but only so far.
101	*** So what it boils down to is ostensibly benevolent gods going "yeah, poor cannon fodder, we know you're no worse morally than the people killing you and you're being forced by higher-ups to colonize their country, but we're going to send your enemies [[TheChosenOne an 'I Win' button]] because ''their'' higher-ups thousands of miles away are good people like you (maybe we'll replace ''your'' higher-ups with good people in a few centuries, if we feel like it)"? That's not better. The first rule of storytelling is "[[PetTheDog give your readers a reason to sympathize with the protagonist]]". You can't switch between grey and [[BlackAndWhiteMorality binary]] morality as it suits you.
102	*** I can't speak to your definition of "good." But I think any nation where the monarch, the monarch's chief advisor, ''and'' the person next in line for the throne all have be ''certified'' good people; confirmed by higher spirits who can see their very souls, that alone would make a country better than any which exists in RealLife. And if the police and circuit judges -- and the head of the police academy, and very likely the top military leaders -- are ''also'' verified as persons who are selfless, dutiful, and incorruptible, you'd have an ideal country. And yes, there would be good and bad citizens. Yes, there would be noblemen who abuse their power. Yes, there would be catty infighting in the higher ranks. But if you were wronged you could always go to a Herald, any Herald, and expect to have your case heard and judged fairly, with no fear that the Herald would fall for a lie or a bribe. And if you were ''really'' favored, you might get to be a Herald yourself. Again, I don't know what you'd consider a good country, but Valdemar is it by my definition. If I could live there and not here, I would.
103	** ''Closer to Home'' (which is when Violetta's story takes place) and ''Closer to the Chest'' (which explores similar themes of misogyny) happen less than a hundred years after The Last Herald-Mage trilogy [[note]] One of Mags and Amily's children is HeterosexualLifePartners with Vanyel's great-great-grandson, which makes it roughly ninety years or so [[/note]]. The 'current day' of Valdemar, which is mostly how we all got to know the country and it's society, takes place roughly two hundred years after these books. Think about how our own society has evolved it's attitudes to women over a two century timespan.
104	** The note in the original post refers to the Holderkin as "polyamorous", but that's way more open than they would approve of. The only Holderkin marriages we hear about are polygyny (one male with several wives). Maybe some of a Holderkin male's underwives are "special friends", but the only ''male'' with sexual access to any of them is their husband. I could easily see a Holderkin family slut-shaming a girl who got pregnant before the wedding, though she'd have to work really fast to pull it off considering Talia is old enough for marriage at one year past puberty.
105	** On the topic of Holderkin, Talia also mentions that any girl of marriageable age who turns up having been out all night unsupervised would basically have her prospects limited to horrific drudgery for exactly that reason: because it can't be proven that she wasn't out with a man. More broadly speaking, the issues with Valdemar are systemic. You can put as many certified good people in positions of authority as possible, but if your society is still fundamentally structured on monarchic, patriarchal lines, it's going to grow the ugly patterns of its roots.
106
107	[[/folder]]
108	[[folder:Why are Valdemaran nobles so powerful?]]
109	In nearly every book, there's some discussion of those darn nobles who are so behind the times with their restrictive gender roles, political in-fighting, greed, and their children that clutter up the Collegium. But why would Valdemar even have a powerful nobility and why would its values and social mores be so markedly different from the royal family? Valdemar has been shown to have a very strong centralized government, with lots of educational and social initiatives coming from and being funded by the national government (The massive infrastructure of the Collegium being one of the main ones). There's rarely any mention of any nobles having private armies of substantial size, and the Crown has the HERALDS. Yes, the Heralds are loyal to the principles of Valdemar rather than personal allegiance to the monarch, but since the monarch has to be a Herald anyway, it's pretty much a moot point. With SO much power being consolidated in the Crown and the Heralds, how do the nobles have so much relevance and so much latitude to do whatever they want (and create problems for the main characters)? It's always IN Haven they're making trouble, not out in their own lands far from the capital.
110	** It's even weirder because ''Mage Storms'' explains that the first Valdemarans were literally just one baron, his immediate family, and all the peasants working on their estate. Not much room for ancient exalted bloodlines or any sort of council in that...
111	** Heralds don't own property. They also don't do the day-to-day local governing. The ones with money and local influence are the nobles, and there's political maneuvering for the same reason as in RealLife -- to keep the money and property in the family. The actual heads of household probably don't live in Haven full-time, but they probably have seasonal residences (I think it's mentioned in one book that Valdemar has a social Season), plus there are probably surplus sons or daughters who hang out there. And as it was mentioned in the ''Last-Herald Mage'' trilogy, Haven is the safest and most fortified city -- if things look truly scary, nobles will leave their own holdings and go there.
112	*** Sure, but the question isn't why they're in Haven. The question is why the vast majority of nobles in the series seem to have been teleported out of the Dark Ages when they are dominated by, and spend a quarter of every year with, people whose ideals are more or less modern. And have mindreading fire-throwing police with which they enforce national stability. A government that's always had an extra power bloc like the Heralds would in no way function like "typical real-world government with [fantasy group] tacked on".
113	*** The short version is that the politics of modern sexuality -- efficient FantasticContraception, no stigma against gays, no SlutShaming -- is a privilege of Heralds and their standing outside the realm of property and heirs. Again, there's no paternity testing in Valdemar. There's no corner drugstore where you can always get a condom... though you'd think Haven would be trying to promote birth control. There's money and property that mostly passes hands through inheritance, and you'd better be sure the lords want to ''know'' their heirs are their biological offspring. That's going to lead directly to reduced rights for women, among other things. As for "why can't the mindreading fire-throwing policemen change their minds?", that's a combination of they won't -- there is no One True Way -- and they can't. You can't make people change their minds just because you hold the equivalent of nuclear weapons.
114	** Another point to consider is that Baron Valdemar and his fellow refugees originally claimed an area much smaller than the modern Kingdom of Valdemar. Most of the expansion that we know about came about due to minor nobles deciding they'd be safer as part of Valdemar. Those nobles probably were told they'd have to bring their laws into compliance with Valdemar's as part of the annexation package, but attitudes and culture are an entirely different thing -- and given No One True Way, even if Valdemar ''could'' require immediate cultural changes in a newly annexed area, they wouldn't. So you've got multiple traditions all being mashed together, each of them with different definitions of appropriate behavior and appropriate power distribution. If the local baron and his family have been autocrats for generations, and then he signs on with Valdemar because they've got a bigger army, everyone in that barony is still thinking in terms of "What Baron Whatshisname says, goes".
115	*** This seems like the right answer. Valdemar is more an association of fiefdoms than a united nation with a strong central government. The Crown and Heraldic Circle have to settle for getting everyone to accept some bare minimums: much as they would like everyone to have the same rights and freedoms, they simply can't enforce that with the resources they have on hand
116	*** Thought of something to add to the above. With one or two exceptions, Heralds can't be nobles (in the sense of owning land and titles). They even have a protocol when someone of high rank is Chosen, so Haven can facilitate how that person's inheritance gets portioned out. So, barring a case where someone ''has'' to stay in charge, even if they'd make a great Herald, the incorruptible among the nobility get siphoned off into the Herald ranks, leaving the 'morally flexible' behind.
117	*** This is something hinted at in the very first book. The Holderkin regularly thumb their noses at the Crown and disobey Valdemaran laws (Talia being woefully undereducated about Heralds is implied to be straight up illegal) with the Crown having limited power to come in and strong arm them, instead resorting to blackmailing them and reminding them that Valdemar is a better alternative than Karse. And when asked about how the Holderkin are allowed so much power, everyone just shrugs and says that there's no real true way and they have to respect Holderkin culture. Valdamaran philosophy of allowing all types of cultures and people to flourish is a curse as much as it is a blessing.
118	[[/folder]]
119	[[folder: Channels]]
120	Outside of major catastrophes like the Mage Storms, how would Channels like Karal be useful in magecraft? Yes, they can safely transmit huge amounts of magic, but it's very direct and local... and if the power is so much that Channels don't dare try to use it themselves, how could it be safe for whomever they're transferring the magic to?
121	* I don't think Channels ''are'' useful- that's why nobody talks about them much. They're just "this is a quirky low-level Gift that shows up occasionally". Yeah, most magic in Velgarth is specifically tied to purpose (i.e, someone is pyrokinetic because a god created them that way and wants them to do pyrokinetic things), but apparently not everyone is TheChosenOne? Magic can also be mundane in the setting. With Karal specifically, Channeling seems to be a metaphor for [[PersonalityPowers how he's a really good priest]] (as well as the more obvious [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman storms-heroism-destiny]] thing). He doesn't bring magic to people so much as he brings the divine. Finally- we've never ''seen'' what a trained Channel can do. It's entirely likely that they can control what they transmit, in a way Karal wasn't able to do. Maybe they can transmit in directions, instead of to people. Maybe they can heal Gift exhaustion. Who knows? Velgarth has no shortage of badass long-forgotten arts.
122	** It's occurred to me since that Channels would probably be ideal for group magics. You'd have one 'lead mage' controlling the spell, several other mages contributing power, and then a single Channel focusing the magic like a funnel and sending it where it needs to go.
123	*** We know from the novels that the Eastern Empire 1) uses group magic a lot more than western mages and 2) use Channels more often than western mages, so this is probably the right answer.

Context Headscratchers / HeraldsOfValdemar